Data centers in Linn County

Google is building a data center campus on 414 acres at the Big Cedar Industrial Center in Cedar Rapids, part of a 576 million dollar initial project inside the company's broader 7 billion dollar Iowa investment. Construction was underway by mid 2025, with the first building targeted to open in 2026. This is one of three data center projects now moving forward in the same industrial park, alongside QTS and a smaller Oppidan facility.

QTS is building a data center campus at the Big Cedar Industrial Center in Cedar Rapids that could grow to seven buildings on 612 acres, with the company's stated investment growing from 750 million dollars to as much as 10 billion dollars over time. QTS describes its cooling system as using no water on an ongoing basis. The company has agreed to pay up to 18 million dollars over 20 years into a city community betterment fund.

A third, much smaller data center is planned in Cedar Rapids at 1515 33rd Avenue SW, on land already zoned for light industrial use so it did not need a special city council vote. The building permit, valued at about 101.5 million dollars, was approved on June 22, 2026 for a roughly 98,000 square foot facility. The project is owned by CLOP Cedar Rapids LLC and is being developed by Oppidan Connect, which also built a smaller data center in Des Moines.

Google wants to build a data center campus of up to six buildings on 545 acres in unincorporated Linn County, just north of Palo and next to the closed Duane Arnold nuclear plant, and is pursuing the project through annexation into the small city of Palo rather than the county. Linn County supervisors voted in August 2026 not to add an exception to its 18 month data center moratorium for projects co-located with nuclear plants, after residents said a possible 2029 restart of Duane Arnold was not reason enough to allow one. The City of Palo said on October 9, 2026 that it expects to receive a formal annexation application for the project soon, with a community open house scheduled for October 22, 2026, and a required regional water study on hold until the annexation process moves forward.

Aurum Capital Ventures is proposing a roughly 18,500 square foot data center on the south side of Central City, near the Linn County Fairgrounds, though the company has not yet purchased the property and no site plan or permit has been filed. Central City currently has a moratorium on data centers while the city council drafts a new ordinance modeled on nearby Palo's rules; the council has expressed support in principle but taken no formal approval action. City officials project the project could bring about 19 million dollars in total tax revenue, roughly half of it to Central City directly, and the company has described plans for closed loop, non water based cooling.